


Larkspur

by PompousPickle



Category: THE iDOLM@STER
Genre: F/F, First Crush, Flower Language, Just gals being pals, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 20:02:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18709027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PompousPickle/pseuds/PompousPickle
Summary: "There were three points in Rin Shibuya’s life where she could physically feel something inside of her change. "[Or, Rin comes to a realization. And she realizes that Uzuki's smile isn't the only one that has changed her life]





	Larkspur

**Author's Note:**

> This piece was for Niya for the iDOLM@STER Rare Pair Gift Exchange! I was really excited to get a pairing that has always been dear to my heart, so I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing!

There were three points in Rin Shibuya’s life where she could physically feel something inside of her change. A pivotal second in her life where everything fell into place, and she knew that going forward, nothing else would be the same as it once was.

First, was the first time she spoke to Uzuki, with cherry blossoms falling around her as she encouraged Rin to become an idol. To find a dream.

Second, was the first time she sang with Nao and Karen. Feeling her voice resonate with two others, becoming one. Her lungs felt like they were flying from her chest, and her heart thrummed with the energy of three voices finding perfect harmony within each other.

Third, was the first time she saw Mio act on stage.

It was different than the first two times, Rin decided as she watched Mio take a bow during the first night’s curtain call. The first two times she felt this way, it was because the path of her own life was changing. She was finding a _passion_ , and a purpose. She thought back on them many times. Before Triad Primus walked on stage to perform the first time. When Uzuki had left to take extra training. She ran them over her head, trying to figure out exactly why they were so important to her.

This was something else entirely. There was no direct path laid out for Rin to take. She wasn’t feeling her heart find a new passion. She was watching someone else explore her own passions, drenched in the harsh stage lights but shining completely on her own. She was laughing, as though the excitement has completely overpowered her and bubbled out in unending laughter. And Rin’s eyes were totally transfixed.

She felt a hand grip her arm gently, and Uzuki whispered from next to her. “Mio-chan sure is amazing, huh?” Her voice was soft and breathless, as though the performance had taken something out of her too. Rin wondered for a moment if what she was feeling was normal.

But then she looked back at Mio, waving to a crowd of darkened faces that she surely couldn’t see from the stage. Still, she glanced over towards their section, smile so bright that her eyes were nearly shut. Rin was never a girl of many words, but somehow she felt even more speechless than usual. As though her throat were completely dry. She could just barely croak out a simple response.

“Yeah. Yeah she is.” 

\---

“Mio-chan said that they’re doing the first-night talks and going over the performance,” Uzuki said, popping out of the dressing room to meet back up with her friend.  “But after she said she can totally meet up with us and go out to get food!”

Rin nodded, her head swimming in her own thoughts. “She’s not going out to eat with the rest of the cast?” She wasn’t exactly sure how theater worked, but she had always pictured the cast of each show to be very close, going out for dinner every night. But maybe the first night was special. Or maybe she and Uzuki were special. She furrowed her brow, unsure of the feeling stirring inside of her.

Uzuki shook her head, the cheerful smile still on her face. “She said she can go out with them later. You have work during the next two nights, and I have a job on the final show. So this is our one chance to celebrate together!”

Rin nodded again. It made sense when she put it that way. And she smiled in return, small and uncertain but a smile nonetheless. “Alright. So we wait.”

So they waited. And while they waited, Rin thought. She thought back to Mio’s smile on stage. Mio smiled a lot, really. It was an irreplaceable part of New Generations. Each one of their smiles carried weight and meaning. Rin had thought a lot about Uzuki’s, of course. All three of them had talked about her smile, at length. So it made sense that Rin never really gave much thought to Mio’s.

Now it was hard not to think about it.

Her smile on stage was different than when she was singing with the others. It was different than when she was just talking cheerfully, happily prattling away while Rin dutifully listened. And it was different than when they were alone. Or when Rin was upset, and she smiled as best she could to cheer her up.

Rin had no idea why each and every single one seemed so incredibly precious, but they did. And the one she had seen on stage during the curtain call felt like a final piece to her collection. A smile that could not be replaced. And Rin wanted to see it again.

“Hey! Sorry for making you wait! I’m here, I’m here!” Mio called out, running out of the dressing room and towards the other two. Uzuki ran forward to meet her, crashing into a hug. Mio hugged her in return, squeezing all of her energy into the other girl. She pulled back, and looked at Rin, giving yet another smile. Her usual one. “Shiburin! Hey-ya!”

Rin nodded in greeting, wondering why such a small thing made her heart thrum. “Hey,” Rin returned, a little lamely, her mind turning knots as she tried to think of a situation where she could make Mio smile like that again. But this time just for her.

\---

“I see,” Karen nodded thoughtfully as they went through a final run of their show. It was a small greeting event to promote their new single, and they would only be performing one song during it. But extra practice was never a bad idea. Especially since they were all free to meet up several hours before the curtain. “So you want to do something for Mio’s final performance.”

Rin nodded. “I’m the only one who can make it, for the most part. I want to make sure she knows we support her though.” She felt a little dirty saying it. But it was too much to confess that she wanted to make sure Mio knew that _Rin_ supported her. That _Rin_ wanted to see her pursue her passions. That _Rin_ was inspired by her. That without Mio, she wouldn’t even be out here today, practicing a run-through of Triad Primus’s second single.

Without Mio, there wouldn’t be a Triad Primus at all.

Rin frowned. She had known all the times there were major changes in the trajectory of her life. But it was only just now she realized how many smaller changes there were, pushing her along. And she only just now realized how many times Mio had been behind them, with her hand gently at Rin’s back.

“Flowers,” Nao shrugged, as though the answer were there all along. “Honestly I’m not sure why you’re so hung up on it.” Karen shot Nao a brief look, as though to warn her to temper her words. Nao sighed and smiled, looking back at Rin with a softer expression. “I mean it. You have an eye for that kind of thing, right? Surely if you put together a bouquet, it will speak a lot louder than your typical bundle of roses or something.”

Rin raised an eyebrow, a small smile twitching to her lips. “Oh? You seemed to like roses just fine when you were admiring the flower stands outside.”

Nao tensed up, just a little. “Well, when they’re from fans, that is…”

“Didn’t you say it reminded you of a show you liked?” Karen chimed in a similar smile on her face, easily climbing to the opening Rin made. “Ah, or perhaps it made you think of a manga that you re-“

“That’s enough!” Nao shouted out suddenly. Both Rin and Karen glanced at each other knowingly, both biting back laughter as they teased their friend. “We should take it from the top, both of you! Enough stalling, already.”

Rin nodded, picking herself off the chair she was sitting in and holding out her hand for Karen. She thought over the brief conversation, mulling the words in her head. “Flowers, huh?” she mumbled under her breath, despite herself. It wasn’t the worst idea she had ever heard.

\---

Flowers were common for idols, of course.  However, fans didn’t typically send massive stands for stage productions. From what Rin understood, gifts were much smaller, and usually there were a lot of fan-letters collected after the show. Bouquets were more traditional, even if Rin would have to hold off until well after the show to hand them over to the lead actress.

Something about that made her heart pick up pace, as thinking of Mio often did. She grabbed for some orange daisies, placing them into a vase with a small smile. Youth, and cheerfulness. It was a common flower for arrangements, as it had a very vague and amicable meaning. They were nice, but they needed an accent. Especially if Rin would be handing this over to Mio on her own, all alone after the show had ended.

She lingered on her thoughts about Mio, and her freshly blooming feelings, and she grabbed for more flowers.

She pulled forth several orange roses, examining them for freshness. They were passion, and excitement, and enthusiasm. They suited Mio Honda, for certain. But more than that, orange roses were a perfect mixture of the friendship of yellow roses and the romance of red. It was a bridge of the two feelings, a place somewhere in between where Rin seemed to find herself. She smiled as she let herself smell the roses fondly, before placing them into the vase.

Purple tulips were rebirth, like the life Mio seemed to spur into her when Rin herself was tempted to turn down opportunities. Chrysanthemums were a symbol of the sun, each petal fanning out into brightness and perfection, bright and welcoming. She placed in the greenery, supporting and accenting each flower, bringing them all together.

She looked at it all, realizing that the purple of the tulips seemed odd amongst the bright oranges and yellow. She glanced over at what else she had in the shop, before her eyes finally rested on a small bundle of purple larkspur.

First love.

She sighed. There was no real denying it, was there? She grabbed for them, placing them into the vase and arranging them until everything blended together, mixing into one single genuine feeling. She could only hope that just a small fraction of that could properly come across.

\---

Rin waited just inside the backstage area for what seemed like ages. She was lucky that the security had let her come in at all, as they must have remembered her from when she entered with Uzuki. The play had been even better than the first performance, and every ounce of hard work that Mio had put into it showed. She was certain that Mio felt that too.

She had messaged her after the show, telling her that she would just briefly want to see her to congratulate her. She received a reply almost twenty minutes later, assuring her that she would come out as soon as she could, but she did agree to have dinner with rest of the cast. Rin had expected that, but she somehow couldn’t fight the pit building at the bottom of her stomach.

Her hands were going cold, and somehow the flowers in her hands already looked wilted, and darker, as though they weren’t bright enough for Mio Honda. She swallowed heavily, until her throat finally felt a little less dry. But her lungs still felt light, like she wouldn’t be able to speak at all, even when Mio did come out.

She wondered if it was just the smile that sent her on this path, or if she had been walking it unknowingly for a long time. And the smile was simply her wake-up call.

“Ah! Hey Shiburin! Sorry to have kept you wai-ah. Are those…are those for me?” Mio seemed to falter in her steps as she came out of the dressing room. She slowed in her pace, until she was approaching Rin almost cautiously, a smile still on her face but her eyes wide, and full of wonder.

“I…yeah.” Rin took a step forward of her own, handing the bouquet forward, pulled from the vase and wrapped in white and orange paper. She didn’t explain the meaning. She _couldn’t_ explain the meaning. She could only hope that each and every flower spoke on its own. “You were amazing up there. I’m…” she searched for the words for a moment, before finally relaxing. “I’m glad you got up there. I’m glad you found something that belongs to you.”

Mio’s eyes were on the flowers for a long moment. She turned the bouquet over and over again, as though searching for what to say somewhere in the leaves and petals. “Hey!” She finally looked up with a start, grinning. “Let’s go out to eat, just the two of us. I’m absolutely starved.”

Rin’s brain started to turn somersaults. “But everyone in the cast…”

“They’ll be fine! The official break-down and party is tomorrow anyway!” Mio waved it off, but something in her voice felt strained, almost desperate to maintain a calm exterior. Rin almost said something. After all, Mio had just demonstrated that she was a better actress than this.

“But you’re the lead. Not showing up to the after-show dinner is like Cinderella not showing up to the ball.”

Mio was her Cinderella.

Mio’s smile dropped, but her eyes remained wide, searching as she looked up at Rin’s face. She narrowed them for only a second, before replying with a soft voice. “But what if her prince wasn’t at the ball in the first place?”

Rin could be her prince.

“I…” Rin was breathless for a moment, and there was a heavy silence between them. It was just two girls and an empty hallway, with a bright orange bouquet standing between them. Rin could hear even the heavy swallow in her throat echo around her.

“Yeah. I would like that. Just the two of us.”

And then Mio smiled, and Rin swore it was even brighter up close, without the stage lights to drown it out. And Rin felt something else shifting inside of her, urging her to put out her hand. As Mio grabbed onto it, she knew that yet another path had opened, and her life was changing for the better, once again.


End file.
